Does a degree matter?

[GaryNattrass]

We had some lecturers from a major meediah uni as part of the commentary crew on last years olympics and it was quite shocking how little they knew, fortunately most of them were also rejected at the training stage!

 

Most of the students were pretty clueless too and I even got one a job as an editor but she couldn't handle it and packed it in after a week.

[Adam L F]

As a university student myself, I can tell you that there are some people out there who do not have a clue about what they're doing. But there will always be those gems who do come out the other end with a fantastic work ethic, and the knowledge/experience to back themselves up with. A degree is no walk in the park that's for sure, but if you have the drive to sit and write, network and read for three years, as well as keeping yourself up with the goings on in the industry, and staying out on site, then why not just go for it? It's what I did!

[mark_s]

...why not just go for it? It's what I did!

 

Do you feel that it is beneficial to your career? It's a bit pointless 'just going for' something which will get you in all sorts of debt and not have a major positive influence career-wise.

 

I'm not a huge fan of industry-related technical degrees; I've worked with several current students and recent graduates, and they have nearly all at some point scared me senseless with either a dangerous lack of fundamental knowledge (such as not understanding why 16A gender benders are a very bad idea) or a lack of understanding about how what they're studying translates to the real world. The thought that this is the average graduate that these courses turn out scares me, to be quite frank.

 

I also think that any money or debt-related arguments are a bit of a red herring. You're unlikely to ever pay off your student loan in full (or even in any significant way) and it doesn't count against you when applying for credit in the future. It is essentially a graduate 'tax' - if you have decently-paying employment, you pay it back at a rate that is affordable. A degree may open the doors to better-paying employment, and therefore you're in a better position financially than if you'd not gone to university. Eventually it's written off regardless of how much you've paid back. I don't understand why so many people are so concerned about 'debt' from studying.

[Adam L F]

...why not just go for it? It's what I did!

 

Do you feel that it is beneficial to your career? It's a bit pointless 'just going for' something which will get you in all sorts of debt and not have a major positive influence career-wise.

 

In all honesty Mark, I do. When I first set out to do my degree, I'd just stopped working for a large entertainments company in Lincolnshire, mainly because I felt that it was my time to move on, and explore new opotunites. My mother was always keen on me doing a degree and I thought I may as well try it out and test the water, obviously a degree is not for everyone. I looked at many different degrees, such as the Lighting Control BA at Bruford, Production Lighting (I think it's called that?) at CSSD, as well as the Lighting Design & Technology BSc at Glamorgan (now South Wales Uni), and decided to settle on that.

 

I didn't want a "run of the mill design arty farty degree", now I'm not knocking the degrees offered by these other establishments, I'm sure they're very well suited to the students who've decided to embark upon them, but I'm much more interested in what light is, the principles and how to make light do what I want, power calculations, how to pre-vis, AutoCAD and other modelling packages. I like seeing a show come together, being the person who can say with certainty "don't worry mate, I can fix that for you", rather than lighting up a pair of shoes, which one of my friends was doing the other week!

 

It does sadden and worry me to see that you've worked with graduates who aren't up to standard, but perhaps the blame could be three fold here, not knowing the situation you were put in with graduates I can only take a wild stab in the dark as to what may of happened, but I do share your concern with the whole 16amp gender bend (Whaaa?!). Thankfully I've been lucky enough to of been networking with some production companies around the UK, and they've been exceedingly helpful and taken me under their wing, and shown me the ropes. As well as studying I do get out on side and undertake paid work, thankfully my summer is already filling up! Students do need to realise that this isn't a sit behind a desk style job, you CAN kill someone if you do something wrong, this needs to be drilled into everyones heads.

 

A gripe I do have with educational establishments, you cannot recreate the "real world", with that element of danger, there is no way you can make a mistake and feel the consequences, and that is a problem I face here at university, if I don't submit an assignment on time, I get a bad or no grade, which just effects me, and no one else, there needs to be that element of danger, where you can really ***k up.

 

I have a feeling I've gone on a major tangent from the original question asked. http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif I do feel like you've kind of contradicted yourself slightly though Mark, with your first sentence and the last portion of your ending paragraph.

[mark_s]

I do feel like you've kind of contradicted yourself slightly though Mark, with your first sentence and the last portion of your ending paragraph.

 

It was more of an observation - if people feel that university would be beneficial for them, then finance and debt shouldn't even enter the equation. It's irrelevant. I don't personally feel that a degree in technical theatre is worth the paper that it's printed on, but that's just my opinion. If the OP feels that a degree would benefit him, that is his opinion and his choice to make. Either way, I feel that making a decision based partly on being £30000 in 'debt' at the end of it is dumb.

[Adam L F]

I do feel like you've kind of contradicted yourself slightly though Mark, with your first sentence and the last portion of your ending paragraph.

 

It was more of an observation - if people feel that university would be beneficial for them, then finance and debt shouldn't even enter the equation. It's irrelevant. I don't personally feel that a degree in technical theatre is worth the paper that it's printed on, but that's just my opinion. If the OP feels that a degree would benefit him, that is his opinion and his choice to make. Either way, I feel that making a decision based partly on being £30000 in 'debt' at the end of it is dumb.

 

Ah right I see, I may of slightly misinterpreted what you were getting at there then. http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif In that case I do totally agree with you, if you can justify that it could benefit your career then go for it, you're not going to find out otherwise really. At the end of the day, I will be starting my career on site, or within a warehouse, which is where I believe everyone should be starting, you shouldn't have to be subject to new borns fresh out of university on site (I may be shooting myself in the foot here, but I have done warehouse work myself, and have been on site with large production companies since I was 19, feel free to view my website). University or ANY educational course doesn't show you how to pack a truck correctly. http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif

 

If you do go for a degree, you NEED to make sure you keep in contact with all your contacts, my final year here at university has been spent making new contacts, going to Frankfurt, working with Robe Lighting at Plasa last year on their stand. And most importantly, keep your foot in the door, get out on site!

 

Edit:- I do think that we need to be careful not to "student bash" here, because after all if people like it or not, people of my generation are the ones who will ultimately have your job perhaps in a few years from now, I mean that's what we all aim for right?

[paulears]

The trouble is, nowadays a degree is good business for the providers, so it's no secret some degrees and classes are meaningful - but only if the employers understand the system. Rather like kids who get D and below in their GCSE. This grade would have been a fail before, but that's no longer allowed, so people can say they got a GCSE (when they really were pretty hopeless) The same thing happens at A Level and BTEC Level 3 - a D, or pass really means they didn't work hard enough. It gets worse at uni because awarding degrees is not even in the hands of inept politicians - it's in the hands of the universities. A 1st class degree from university A really can't be compared with the same name degree from university B. They cannot really fail people - especially now so much money and debt is tied up in it, so we should not expect graduates to be automatically employable. The good ones will be, the bad ones less so. Many have also never been under any real work pressure. The worst will be missing a deadline and being given a few extra days to do the work they should have done months before. Work pressure (and the work ethic) may never have been experienced. People can always do their university stuff when they are older, in their spare time - and the OU has shown that the results from people who are really keen are extremely good - but then they're spending their own hard earned money, aren't they?

[indyld]

A few points:

 

* People do fail at University, at every stage. A small proportion fail at the end and leave with nothing, having not even re-taken/re-submitted or failed again. Consider that many that have 'failed' actually dropped out before completing, some even after the first term. When assessing those that stick it out, the learning (and the hurdles throughout) are built up over the course, they aren't expected to suddenly jump 10 metres from a standing start at the end of Year 3. All this means that "Oops, sorry. You failed. Bye" is unlikely.

 

* Students need to demonstrate their capabilities according to the stated outcomes. I'm sorry Mr Industry, but "Knows everything about loading a meatrack the way you like it" is unlikely to be one of them. A First doesn't guarantee that someone won't get a 15 to 16 muddled up with a 16 to 15. We've only had 2 BA (Hons) Firsts so far out of many, many students, both of them graduated professional, employable and in demand. We also can say the same about plenty of non-First graduates and their classification is a pretty good indicator as to which end of that scale they sit. This is as it should be.

 

* Comparisons with GCSEs results are only of limited relevance. Everyone must take GCSEs. In HE we take students that demonstrate the various qualities that increase the chances of them NOT failing. Why would be take people on if they had no chance of passing, ruining our stats and leaving us to be blamed for not helping them enough to achieve a BA which they had no hope of managing?

 

* All the above points are secondary to the thing that strikes me the most about these kinds of discussions. People a few years into the industry, or even many years for that matter, need to be a bit more realistic about what they knew aged 20. It seems it only takes a few years on the road for those that were struggling to identify a Soca from a garden hose a few years earlier, to start proclaiming that the trouble with young people is that they don't know everything 'like wot I do' and it's the fault of 'so-called education' that is a complete waste of time.

 

In the OPs case, the question was if everyone thought THEY should go to do a degree right now, with an emphasis on how they had plenty of work, were building up contacts and consolidating knowledge on which end of the FOH loom the plugs should be. In that context, the answer from me is no, you don't need to drop everything and get frustrated 'not learning anything' doing a degree, which no doubt is taught by these perennial mystery numpties that are wheeled out every time someone wants to make a point about how useless academics are etc.

 

I don't doubt the veracity of the tales, it's just a bit old hat. Perhaps next time that a student goes to some supposed 'pro' and returns with tales of dangerous practices, narrow experience, tunnel vision and stupidity, I shall save it for such an occasion.

 

A gripe I do have with educational establishments, you cannot recreate the "real world", with that element of danger, there is no way you can make a mistake and feel the consequences, and that is a problem I face here at university, if I don't submit an assignment on time, I get a bad or no grade, which just effects me, and no one else, there needs to be that element of danger, where you can really ***k up.

 

That depends on the structure of the course. If you were engaged with practice-based assessment I.e shows, then ***king up effects everybody which is partly why on such courses the opportunity for non-attendance is virtually nil, unless you want a kicking from your peers. Messing up on a show means you also get to look stupid in front of a range of of performers, crew and audience too! As key production staff, you also face accusations from performers of messing up their dissertations. (In fact, students are not penalised for the mistakes of others but that does not make it feel any better, I'm sure. However, working well as part of a strong team and contributing as a group to a nicely run show often equals a higher mark)

 

The biggest issue is finding yourself working with other students from courses that do not generally collaborate. I think this is a bigger shock for those students than it is for the production team, as the team are used to an environment where everyone's work impacts on everyone elses.

[kerry davies]

We seem to be veering into areas of personal opinion on broader terms rather than answering the OP questions and maybe todays news that universities are lobbying for student loan repayments to start at £18K rather than £21k makes a difference.

 

As wage levels fall and more and more graduates take on low paid work, non-profitable self-employment and part time roles could this reduction be just a beginning? I dunno! All one can do is express an opinion and for the OP taking his eye off the ball when he has a VAT registered, flourishing business in operation seems counter-productive.

 

Whether I think degrees should be replaced by olde-worlde apprenticeships, which I do, or that block-release degree level education needs to be offered, which I do, is irrelevant. What matters to the OP are his own specific circumstances and IMHO they indicate that taking three years out now would be folly.

 

One subject for further discussion could be whether technical theatre roles are actually skilled, semi-skilled, or what. In my mind they certainly do not demand a degree, rather a wider range of training in specific skills as the OP himself suggests.

[Just Some Bloke]

Many years ago I was working as a technican at a professional theatre and a band came in who had intended to bring a lighting designer, in his final year at college studying lighting design, with them. The poor guy was very ill on the day and couldn't attend, but sent a rig plan and focus call with the band and asked if we could set it all up for him then busk it on the night. We would have been happy to do what he asked but he had completely ignored the fact that we were a proscenium venue and his focus call didn't work at all. Neither did his patching or his loading of the bars. In fact the whole thing was so impractical (and would have been in any proscnium venue) that we asked the band if we could just do our own version of the plan using the same colours. They were very happy with what they got. I remember thinking at the time that none of us had a degree in Lighting Design but we were able to do a better job because of experience in the business.

 

Come forwards a lot of years and you find me as a Technical Manager at a similar venue where we hired a graduate from a Lighting Design course as a Technician and watched as, for the 2 years he worked for us, he never once sketched out a plan, rigged to his own design or did anything that might involve "design" in any real way. He was quite happy using a 3 colour wash and some specials for everything. This was fine, but strange from someone who came from an LD degree. He now works building and repairing lifts as it pays more than being a theatre technician.

 

Now I know these are just 2 examples of many, others of which may be very successful indeed, but I still think if you've got enthusiasm, skills and experience then you're head and shoulders above a graduate without these traits. I do have a degree in music and some of the best musicians I know don't. It's much the same thing!

[Ynot]

Not really a technical angle, but this came from LinkedIn - I'm guessing if you're not subscribed you may not be able to see it so if that's the case I may cut & paste the text instead...

"Congratulations, College Graduate. Now, tell what you learned..."

 

Most definitely a US biased piece, but some of the comments there I'm sure might cross the pond.

[indyld]

Most definitely a US biased piece, but some of the comments there I'm sure might cross the pond.

Short version: You get out what you put in.